Hagel: It was furlough 680K or deepen readiness crisis

6:48 PM,
May 16, 2013

Tom Philpott

Written by

Tom Philpott

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered the furlough of 680,000 civilian employees for one day a week, from early July through September, to avoid taking deeper cuts in training and maintenance, which could have degraded readiness to the point of threatening "core missions," he said.

The Department of Defense furlough plan will cut work hours and pay of most civilian employees by 20 percent for up to 11 weeks to save $1.8 billion. And Hagel doesn't rule out needing another furlough plan in 2014.

This furlough will help DoD absorb $37 billion in arbitrary budget cuts from sequestration, a ...